April 29. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



399 



John Wesley and the Duke of Wellington. — It 

 has always been understood that the property be- 

 queathed to the Colleys, who in consequence took 

 the surname of Wesley, afterwards altered to 

 Wellesley, was offered to and declined by the 

 father of John Wesley, who would not allow his 

 son to accept the condition, a residence in Ire- 

 land, and the being adopted by the legatee. Has 

 there been a relationship ever proved between the 

 founder of the Methodists and the victor of Wa- 

 terloo ? Prestoniensis. 



Haviland. — Can any of your Plymouth cor- 

 respondents give any information, as tombs, in 

 memory of persons of the name of Haviland, 

 Havilland, or De Havilland, existing in the 

 churches of that place, of a date prior to 

 a.d. 1688? Mention is made of such tombs as 

 existing in a letter of that date in my possession. 

 Also, in what chronicle or history of the Conquest 

 of England, mention is made of a Sieur de Ha- 

 villand, as having accompanied Duke William 

 from Normandy on that occasion ? D. F. T. 



Bi/j-on. — Will you kindly inform me, through 

 the medium of your " N. & Q.," whence the line 

 " All went merry as a marriage bell " (in Byron's 

 Childe Harold) is derived ? C. B. 



" Rutabaga." — What is the etymology of the 

 word rutabaga ? I have heard one solution of it, 

 but wish to ascertain whether there is any other. 

 The word is extensively used in the United States 

 for Swedish turnips or " Swedes." Luccus. 



A Medal. — A family in this city possesses a 

 silver medal granted to Joseph Swift, a native of 

 Bucks county, Pennsylvania, by the University of 

 Oxford or of Cambridge, of which the following is 

 a description. It is about two inches in diameter ; 

 on the face are the head and bust of Queen Anne 

 in profile, with an inscription setting forth her 

 royal title, and on the reverse a full-length figure 

 of Britannia, with ships sailing and men ploughing 

 in the background, and this motto, " Compositis 

 venerantur Annis." The date is mdccxiii. An 

 explanation of the object of the medal is desired. 



Oldbuck. 



Philadelphia. 



The Black Cap. — Can any of your antiquarian 

 legal readers inform me of the origin of the 

 custom of the judges putting on a black cap when 

 pronouncing sentence of death upon a criminal ? 

 I can find no illustration of this peculiar custom 

 in Blackstone, Stephens, or other constitutional 

 writers. F. J. Q. 



The Aboriginal Britons. — A friend of mine 

 wants some information as to the history, con- 

 dition, manners, &c. of the Britons, prior to the 



arrival of the Romans. What work, accessible to 

 ordinary readers, supplies the best compendium of 

 what is known on this subject ? The fullest 

 account of which I have, just now, any recollection, 

 is contained in Milton's History of England, in- 

 cluded in an edition of Milton's Prose Works, 

 three vols, folio, Amsterdam, 1694. Is Milton's 

 History a work of any merit or authority? 



II. Martin. 

 Halifax. 



#tut0r <&uzvicfZ tut'tlj ansfu3cr£f. 



" Gossip." — This word, in its obsolete sense, 

 according no doubt to its Saxon origin, means a 

 sponsor, one who answers for a child in baptism, a 

 godfather. Its modern acceptation we all know 

 to be widely different. Can any of your corre- 

 spondents quote a passage or two from old English 

 authors, wherein its obsolete sense is preserved ? 



N. L. J. 



[The word occurs in Chaucer, The Wyf of Bathes 

 Prologue, v. 5825. : 



" And if I have a gossib, or a friend, 

 (Withouten gilt) thou chidest as a frend, 

 If that I walke or play into his hous." 



And in Spenser, Faerie Queene, b. i. c. 12. : 



" One mother, when as her foole-hardy child 



Did come too neare, and with his talons play, 

 Halfe dead through feare, her little babe reuil'd, 

 And to her gossips gan in counsell say." 



Master Richard Verstegan is more to the point : 



" Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual 

 affinity to grow between the parents and such as un- 

 dertooke for the child at baptisme, called each other 

 by the name of Godsib, which is as much as to say, 

 that they were Mi together, that is, of kin together 

 through God. And the child, in like manner, called 

 such his God-fathers, or God -mothers." — Restitution 

 of Decayed Intelligence, ch. vii. 



A quotation or two from that delightful old gossip, 

 Mr. Pepys, will show its use in the middle of the 

 seventeenth century : 



" Lord's Day. With my wife to church. At noon 

 dined nobly, ourselves alone. After dinner, my wife 

 and Mercer by coach to Greenwich, to be gossip to 

 Mrs. Daniel's child. My wife much pleased with the 

 reception she had, and she was godmother, and did bold 

 the child at the font, and it is called John." — Diary, 

 May 20, 1666. 



" Lord's Day. My wife and I to Mr. Martin's, 

 where I find the company almost all come to the 

 christening of Mrs. Martin's child, a girl. After sit- 

 ting long, till the church was done, the parson comes, 

 and then we to christen the child. I was godfather, 

 and Mrs. Holder (her husband, a good man, 1 know 

 well) and a pretty lady that waits, it seems, on my 

 Lady Bath at Whitehall, her name Mrs. Noble, were 

 godmothers. After the christening comes in the wine 



